Teaching your dog Heal.

In a previous article I discussed teaching loose leash walking, if you would like to read this, you can find it on this website by clicking here: 'loose leash walking'


With loose leash walking, no command is given to the dog, she is allowed to walk at her own pace, sniff, move around etc., the only rule is that she shouldn't pull on you, the leash needs to remain loose.


With heeling a specific cue, 'heel' or whichever other word you choose to use, is given. Your dog needs to walk sticking close to your left or right hand side and focusing on you. In the picture below you can see what great heelwork should look like; Paddington is right by his mom's side and keeping his eyes on her.


While your dog shouldn't be expected to heel for his entire walk, heeling is useful in a number of situations, such as when crossing roads, walking down a busy pavement or through a busy area, squeezing in the door at the vet's office or when walking past something you know your dog will react to, like a jogger or a barky dog behind a gate. As heeling focuses the dog on you, this helps to break concentration on whatever he might react to.


Which side should your dog heel on? Unless you plan to compete in formal obedience, where heeling on the left hand side is mandatory, its completely up to you. You can even teach your dog to heel on either side by picking one cue word for heeling on the left and another for heeling on the right. If you choose to do this, first teach your dog to heel confidently on one side before adding the other. Having a dog who is able to heel on both sides is useful preparation for agility training and also keeps your dog from becoming 'one sided'.


The traditional method of teaching heeling involves placing a treat on your dog's nose and then luring her along next to you as you walk. Every few steps the dog is given the treat. Once she is getting the idea, which should be after two to three short practice sessions, she should understand that you have the treats and follow you. You now progress off of luring and start holding your hands up, against your belly, while still rewarding your dog often for maintaining the heel position. As your dog's skill increases the number of steps taken in between rewards is lengthened. This method still works well for training puppies, who, at their young age, tend to be very focused on their owners.


When teaching adolescent and older dogs you can run into trouble, as they can often be more interested in pulling on the leash to meet other dogs and sniffing the ground. Due to this, luring often becomes a crutch that is difficult to get rid of.


With these dogs you can begin by teaching your dog to follow you as you walk backwards, and then progress this into heelwork. This method is useful because firstly, it teaches your dog to focus on you, and secondly it takes away the possibility of pulling on the leash as he is walking towards you and your body blocks his path. As your dog learns to focus on you while walking, and experiences walking on leash without pulling, practising this exercise can lead to improved loose leash walking as well.

If you find your dog is a little 'focus challenged' you may want to begin by working on some focus exercises with her. You can find an article on how to do this here: 'getting your dog to pay attention'


Begin by training in an area where there are not many distractions, like your garden. Get together some treats, and your clicker if you will be using this. If you have several dogs, work with one dog at a time.


Hold your dog's leash and your clicker in one hand and a number of small treats in the other, so that you can hand them out quickly and easily while you are on the move. Small, soft treats like pieces of vienna or chicken breast are ideal as they can be eaten quickly and your dog won't stop moving and lose focus while he is laboriously munching his way through a hard biscuit.

Stand in front of your dog, with your dog facing you, and begin walking backwards. Your dog should follow you and also look at you as you walk. Every few steps click or praise your dog for doing the right thing and offer a reward. Don't stop walking while rewarding your dog, keep moving, you want to keep the exercise flowing. You can reward as often as every three to five steps at first. If your dog is constantly losing focus, you may not be rewarding often enough, so start rewarding more frequently, you don't want to be stingy with treats in this early learning phase as the more your dog enjoys it the better he will learn the lesson.


If your dog tries to dodge around you, to one side or the other, then, still walking backwards, curve towards where she is going and place yourself in front of her again. This may mean you are walking in circles or squiggles at first, don't worry about this, your dog will soon get the idea.


Spend at least a week of daily short practice sessions teaching your dog to follow before moving onto the next step. By then he should be pretty good at it. If not, spend another week teaching following before moving on.


Begin by having your dog follow you as you have been practising. Hold your treats in one hand and the clicker and leash in the other. Your treat hand should be the same one as the side you want your dog to walk on i.e. if she will heel on the left then hold the treats in your left hand, if on the right then put the treats in your right hand. This will make rewarding your dog easier when you switch to the heel position.


When your dog is following nicely, turn yourself around so that you are now next to your dog and continue walking. You will want to click or praise and reward very often at this stage to keep your dog interested in the game. If you are seeing the same picture with your dog as the one shown below; your dog is next to you, with his eyes on you, click or praise and reward every time to encourage him to do this more often.


If you lose your dog, switch back to following until you have recaptured her attention and then move around and start walking next her again. If you're constantly losing your dog try rewarding more often, and if this fails, have a look at your treats. Whatever you are giving might not be that appealing to your dog, so you can try experimenting with some other goodies, every dog is different in terms of what they like best.


As you walk next to your dog, you should not be luring him with a treat to his nose. Hold your hands up against your belly and just move your treat hand down to pass your dog a treat every few steps.




Once your dog is getting the idea you can start adding in your cue word, 'heel' or whatever you choose, and start decreasing the number of treats you are giving in your quiet home environment. You are now ready to take your heeling 'on the road' and start using it on walks. Remember that there are a lot more distractions now so go back to rewarding your dog like mad at first and then slowly decrease the rate of the rewards as she gets better at heeling around distractions.

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